"as if the world weren't full enough of history without inventing more." ~ granny weatherwax, wyrd sisters.

~oOo~

2009-09-29

more vintage video fun: "a date with your family"

Brought to you from mst3k, another educational short (about 10 minutes) demonstrating the proper attitude towards, and behavior at, nightly dinner with one's family.

My favorite sequence:

Narrator: "First of all, Daughter has changed from school clothes to something more festive.

I know I certainly put on my Sunday best before Hanna and I sit down to supper. Also, it's creepy that all the characters are referred to by their generic member-of-the-family label, not actual names.

"Dressing a little makes her feel -- and consequently look -- more charming."

because it's all about performance, girls! remember that!

"Mother too changes from her daytime clothes. The women of this family seem to feel that they owe it to the men of the family to look relaxed, rested, and attractive at dinner time."

In the words of Mike & Co: "So they're unsuspecting when they kill them!"

aside from the fact it's about women performing for men, I love the way the emphasis is on appearance: it's important to "look" relaxed, rested, and attractive . . . never mind that Mother and Daughter are the ones preparing and serving the entire meal!

The whole film, in fact, emphasized the performance of an ideal 1950s family, with the suppression of unpleasant news and discord in favor of harmony and surface-level conversation. The narrator's script keeps emphasizing this point, as if he's just begging for us to wonder what evils are lurking in the shadows, unspoken.

You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, I’m right here.

"Because the point is logically moot, as I'm never having it off with anyone else ever again. I'm not straight, I'm not gay, I'm with you. How do I get it through that skull of yours? I'm...John-sexual. Oh, bloody hell, you're mine, you said I could have you, you did. You promised."

"Never will I take for granted in this world your generosity of exploration, how you have listened to my body and found what you could do." ~ Joan Nestle, "Our Gift of Touch," in A Fragile Union (144).